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Houston-based pilot Mark Richardson, a captain at Southwest Airlines, has been elected president of the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association, the union said Tuesday.

Richardson received 53.42 percent of the votes cast, SWAPA said.

“It is truly an eventful time to represent the pilots of Southwest Airlines as the company completes its operational integration with AirTran and SWAPA continues contract negotiations,” Richardson said in the SWAPA announcement. “I am honored by the pilots’ trust and do not take lightly the responsibility of leading our group through this changing landscape over the next few years.”

He previously had served as SWAPA second vice president from 2007 to 2010 and was a Houston domicile representative in 2006.

Richardson takes over Jan. 1 from Steve Chase for a two-year term.

SWAPA members picked another Houston-based pilot, Richard Forlano, for a two-year term as second vice president.

The incumbent, Steve Chase, finished third in the first round of voting. In the runoff, Richardson won out over Tom Winsor.

The Southwest Airlines Pilots’ Association said Thursday that Southwest officials informed the union that the airline’s profits mean that pilots are getting a 3 percent pay raise.

Said the union:

“Originally valued during contract negotiations as a likely zero percent raise due to the economy and company performance at the time, this wage increase arrives as a minor surprise and a sign of a changing economic climate.”

Here’s the statement from SWAPA president Carl Kuwitzky:

“This raise is good news for both our pilot group and Southwest Airlines. The pilots have been willing to tie our pay increases to the success of Southwest Airlines.

“Our pilots showed great leadership and confidence in our company and we are excited about a future with an improving economy which allows our company to maintain its profitability.

“The pilots, like all Southwest employees, hope that positive announcements such as the one from the company today signals an end to difficult times and portends a bright, growth-filled future ahead.”

Southwest chief financial officer Laura Wright told analysts that the airline accrued $56 million in employee profit-sharing for the third quarter.

• Both the Allied Pilots Association (American) and the Southwest Airlines Pilots’ Association belong to CAPA.

Here are comments from the three groups, beginning with TWU president James C. Little:

“The airline industry is under intense financial and competitive pressure and as a result, we believe that security and safety standards are being weakened. Combining our lobbying efforts will allow us to push for legislation that will insure both diligence and vigilance.”

CAPA president Paul Onorato:

“The 28,000 pilots of CAPA want to work with all labor organizations to enhance safety and improve the working conditions of airline employees across our industry,” said. “CAPA wants to help provide a flight plan for a successful commercial aviation industry in this country.”

Teamsters general president Jim Hoffa:

“We are leading the fight that workers care about in the airline industry. As the American Aviation Labor Alliance, we will speak on the most pressing aviation issues facing our membership and the public with one strong voice.”

Considering the first deal got 49.2 percent approval, I wonder what has changed.

Is the second deal materially better than the first? Do the job protections outweigh the smaller financial benefit? Was the issue of lance captains such a big issue that changing that provision made all the difference.

Or was the first vote simply the membership’s way of saying they weren’t happy and wanted to make sure the union and the airline knew of their unhappiness, with the second vote the real one?

When you have thousands of pilots voting on a deal, there are thousands of decisions and reasons in play.

Southwest Airlines and its pilots have a new agreement in principle. Assuming the Southwest Airlines Pilots’ Association board blesses it and send it to members, the pilots will vote on it this fall.

After looking at the broad details of the revised proposal, I don’t have the slightest idea whether the new agreement in principle will be acceptable to a majority of Southwest Airlines pilots.

It seems that the two biggest changes from the proposal rejected in June are that it puts more restrictive caps on the amount of code-sharing flying by partners, and it grandfathers in all the existing lance captain positions.

Those were big talking points as SWAPA had the prior proposal out for a vote. But were those bigger factors that the size of the pay increases? The new scheduling system? Other factors?

When a contract goes down by 95 votes out of 5,643 cast, as did the first tentative agreement, it doesn’t take much to push the outcome one way or the other.

Read the Wall Street Journal’s DealBlog transcript here about how the Frontier Airline Pilots Association say that being “stapled” to the end of the Southwest pilots contract was a bit of a deal-breaker in rushed talks last week.

1. United Airlines may or may not get through the latest downturn, and even if it survives it may tweak Denver even more because the three-way competition means terrible things for yields there.

2. Southwest may step on the gas with capacity and aggressive pricing or it may hit the brakes and try to mature the routes they’ve got in there now and have better results.

3. Frontier’s going to get out of bankruptcy protection pronto. They’re making operational profits that are based on lower expenses and they’ve got a corporate parent with some resources, but not a huge war chest to wage a long-term fare battle.

Not sure anybody’s reading us this weekend but you never know. Here’s SWAPA President Carl Kuwitzky’s blast to members that had a lot more detail and some interesting nuggets than the public release from the union.

Highlights: Kuwitzky’s team had just three and a half hours to make a deal with Frontier’s pilots in a process that typically plays out over three months, and that Kuwitzky never really felt like Frontier’s pilots union wanted to make a deal. And when SWAPA kept calling FAPA on Thursday to get back to the bargaining table, they didn’t return calls.

FAPA’s not such a great communicator. My requests to talk to them from Monday got returned… today. But in their defense, it’s probably been the busiest week in their history and resources are thin. I’d put media calls at the bottom of the To Do too..

The headline out of the conference call with Frontier Airlines CEO Sean Menke and CFO Ted Christie was that even if Southwest had gotten a deal with its pilots group and Frontier’s pilots group, the bidding auction had a lot more going on for Frontier than just labor harmony.

Southwest didn’t get its union to agree with Frontier’s, and that meant the end of Southwest’s bid because the Dallas-based carrier wanted the deal in place before bidding began.

But Frontier liked a lot more about Republic’s bid than we knew going in. Not only would Republic keep Frontier flying as Frontier (Southwest would have absorbed it and ended the brand), but also keep plans to add more Airbus planes and continue the fight out of Denver, which is going to be a brutal marketplace for all three major carriers doing battle there – Frontier, Southwest and United. That’s actually great news for travelers, who are going to see cheap fares by the dozen.

Southwest shares were down 27 cents to $8.97 in early trading. Percentage-wise, that’s less than the 19 cent drop for AMR Corp. and the 19 cents United’s parent company had fallen during the same period.

Republic’s shares hopped up 57 cents to $6.57: investors like a winner.

For Southwest, the upside is pretty simple, albeit a tough set of steak knives when first prize was a new Cadillac (‘Glengarry’ reference). I tick off some upsides after the click:Continue reading →